Status Updates From Space Age Renaissance Man: ...

1985
Just about ready to sell their Padgett-Thompson company.

Lost this book for a couple of months .. finishing it this weekend.
His space then education careers are completed. Next up ?

Apollo 8 success.
first time lunar experiences

“Can you imagine the nerve it took the astronauts to climb aboard so large a multi-layered bomb and strap themselves in for … launch ? .. those space cowboys knew that every one of the millions of parts used 2 actually construct their vehicles was built by the government’s lowest bidder !”

Excellent facts about the sphere layers between earth and space .. SO interesting !

“A decade later, Shepard further cemented his fame by walking on the moon as part of the crew of Apollo 14.”

May 5, 1961
Alan Shepard, 1st American astronaut
launched N2 suborbital space.
Rocket: Freedom 7 “pierced the border of the sky” involved “burning back through the atmosphere”
This flight lasted ~15 min. from launch to splashdown.

Graduated OSU ~March 1961 ?

Also received AF Special Act Award and presented paper orally in San Francisco @ AF Science and Engineering Symposium.
“All those eyes!”

AF paid for his MS program @ Ohio State.
Master of Science “there was a super heavy load of really challenging math, especially advanced calculus, ..”
Thesis: Analytical Study of Satellite Temperature Variations
Described the high-speed computer program I had designed to predict the temperature fluxes of satellites in orbit.

Fascinating.

Operation Paperclip
US brought over 1,000 German air attack scientists over nach WWII .. pursuing new
jet & rocket tech.
Dayton, Ohio main AIr Force …

“I was a boy filled with frustrations because I was born with a love for problem-solving but was forced to grow up with an unsolvable father.”

Old radio shows/ radio theater promoted creative thinking as a kid …

7 mile bike ride thru Kansas City by the bros. to the airport …

“Built like the refrigerator it was, the old Victorian house was tall and white. My married-couple landlords lived down on the two lower shelves while I lived up in the cheaply finished attic, the freezer section.”
author’s 1st year college housing
$15/mo in 1952 (lol @ that description!)

I am reading the trade paperback edition with 536 pages.